The Babys Anthology
by hidari12
Summary: The band Jimmy, Carl and Sheen put together continues on with Cindy and Libby joining them and goes on to have great success. But at what cost? This is their story.
1. The Interview: An Introduction

What if Jimmy, Sheen and Carl kept the band that they formed together and added Cindy and Libby? Silly? Yes! But I figure if they can make a show about a talking sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea then why can't I write a story about five pre-teens who go on to form one of the greatest rock bands ever? Read on, Mcduff.

Disclaimer: I don't own Jimmy Neutron or any of the associated characters thereof or the Babys. Lawyers stay away!

The Babys

Chapter I: The Interview

Jimmy Neutron (The Smart One)

Cindy Vortex (The Cute One)

Carl Wheezer (The Funny One)

Libby Folfax (The Quiet One)

Sheen Estevez (The Chosen One)

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We are honored and privileged to bring you a rare event. The band known as The Babys is still alive and well 25 years later and we have them here to conduct this sought after look into the lives of this group. It's amazing how these five different people withstood the test of time to become one of the worlds greatest rock bands. The have 15 albums, 34 Top 40 hits, and 19 #1 songs putting them in very good company. Not to mention how they withstood each other with all of the well known in-fighting and bickering that threatened to break up this proud band so many times over and still produce great music. But, you can hear some of the reasons when you listen to their songs, they really love each other and love doing what they do.

It's hard to get them all together in the same place these days. They are in L.A. right now putting the final touches on their latest album. We finally gathered them up all together and they are waiting in our L.A. studios for this rare, in-depth interview...which is rather unfortunate as we are all here in New York. But, we'll get that all worked out. In the meantime, we have snippets of interviews we did with them individually for this and we'll piece them together so we can bring you something sort of the program we meant to present. Sorry about that.

Anyway, for those of you who don't know the Babys story, it goes back 25 years when they were all just in elementary school. That's right! ELEMETARY school! The average age of the band then was only 11 years old! No one thought that a bunch of kids could pull of having a rock sound let alone the musical proficiency to pull it off, (hence the name 'Babys'), but one listen to them and one knew they were listening to something special.

The subject matter that the Babys sang about and the tightness of the bands sound was well beyond their years prompting some critics to believe that they didn't write or perform any of their own material in those early days. This rumor has long since been discredited.

"That really made me upset." said Carl. "We worked really hard on those records and to have people say that wasn't us on those records just made us all work that much harder."

"Yeah, I heard those rumors." recalls Sheen. "When our first album came out they said 'They sound like kids singing but there's no way that they can be playing like that.' Only our friends and families knew the real deal."

The topics they sang about covered the gambit. Subjects such as homelessness, mature relationships, commitment, life, death, love and hate were not uncommon. But, they also sung about having fun, boys being boys (or girls), and just about being kids.

One reason for the groups popularity early on was that people thought they were a novelty act. That is that they were so young that people listened to them just out of curiosity. But they soon learned that Cindy's insightful and playful lyrics and masterful lead guitar work, Libby's knowledge of the piano or anything instrument with keyboards, Jimmy's soft, crooner like voice (he was a better singer than given credit for), Sheen's melodic bass playing and loud rock and roll voice, (his singing has gotten better though the years) and Carl's steady and rhythmic drumming style was definately not a fluke.

The Babys play what could be called an eclectic type of rock music. That is they use elements from different musical styles. From hard rock, soft rock, pop, R&B, jazz, blues, funk, electronic dance (no rap), and even a few classical elements thrown in (no doubt meshing all of these styles together is from Libby's influence).Their sound is so distinct however that when you hear one of their songs you know instantly that it's them you're listening to.

Unlike a lot of other bands, everyone contributes something to almost every song that is recorded. This can and does sometimes lead to some 'creative differences' between band members (most notably Jimmy and Cindy).

"We've mellowed out a lot. Jimmy and I still have our differences but it's about music now." says Cindy. "We used to fight all the time about the stupidest stuff. But, we were kids then. We're all grown now and we don't fight...much."

With all of the fighting and people threatening to leave over the years, the line-up still hasn't changed in all this time...

Jimmy Neutron and Cindy Vortex: Principle songwriters. Though everyone writes songs for the band these two write the lions share. Jimmy plays rhythm guitar, sings vocals and acts as the bands engineer. Cindy plays lead guitar mostly and sings lead and backing vocals. She also plays the piano and the occasional bass. Libby Folfax is the principle keyboard and synthesizer player and also sings lead and backing vocals. Carl Wheezer provides the back beat as the bands drummer and vocals. Sheen Estevez plays bass mostly but can be heard playing guitars on a few songs.

**How it all came together**

The band was originally called "The Llama Lords of Science." The name reflecting Carl's love of llamas. Sheen's obsession with Ultra-Lord. And Jimmy's dedication to science. At that time it only consisted of Jimmy, Sheen and Carl. It was only meant to be a short-lived, one time appearance of the band. Thank God for the rest of us it wasn't.

"It's funny how we got together in the first place." says Jimmy. "There we were, Carl, Sheen and myself, setting at our lunch table in school. We were talking about some talent show or something and trying out for it. That's when Cindy and Libby walk up and show us what they were going to do. Some dance thing I think it was. That's when it all started."

_Flashback_

"_...So, what are you lameos gonna do?" asked Cindy, "Something stupid like blowing nose bubbles?"_

"_Or spitting water?" adds Libby._

"_Or doing algebra in Latin?" _

"_Actually, our band is going to play." Jimmy said._

"_You losers have a band?"_

"_Yes, we have a band and were gonna stomp your River Stomp."_

"_Oh, yeah?"_

"_Yeah!"_

"_Well, we'll see on Friday..."_

_End Flasback_

As it turns out, Cindy and Libby went on to win first place in the talent show and The Llama Lords of Science didn't even perform. 

"We were fighting with each other over who was the best in the band." said Jimmy. "I remember Sheen getting so mad he destroyed our instruments by throwing them out the window. He was wild even back then. Well, after the girls won the contest we decided to break up for good. I thought that was the end of it."

Little did he know that the seeds had already been sown almost a week earlier.

Cindy recalls, "I lived across the street from Jimmy at that time so when I heard music playing I thought he had turned the radio up really loud. I looked out of the window and saw all of these people there jumping and cheering so I ran over to see what all the fuss was about. There was Jimmy, Carl and Sheen and _they_ were playing the music. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Libby was so totally entranced. I had to drag her out of there."

"When I heard them I just knew I had to be in it." said Libby. "I mean...I don't know. I just had to be in it."

"The day after the show, I went to Sheen and asked if I could be in the band. He said that the band had broken up and wasn't getting back together anytime soon." This news disappointed Libby but she was determined.

Cindy continues, "Libby came over and started talking about that band almost non-stop. She wanted to be in it so bad. I thought she was crazy but I knew how much she loved music. I just said, 'Whatever. If you want to be in a band with a bunch of nerds go right ahead. But, don't involve me.' Who knew?"

"Two or three days later I went back to Sheen and asked him about the band." said Libby. "He said he had no problem with it since I had looked so sad before but he'd have to talk to Carl and Jimmy about it."

Carl said he didn't mind doing it but Jimmy at this point wasn't sure if he wanted to continue being in the band or not. Sheen was trying to convince him and Carl to let Libby join for her keyboard playing (if not for other reasons which we will get into later).

It was up to Jimmy if the band even existed. It was at best just a hobby to him as science was the biggest part of his life, but Sheen and Carl wanted to go on with it and he would do it for them.

"I didn't know for sure if I still wanted to be in the band but it was fun and we had nothing else better to do." said Sheen.

"They wanted to let Libby in." Jimmy said. "I objected at first because she was a girl but I could tell how badly she wanted this and she never caused me any trouble so I said ok, as long as Cindy wasn't involved." then he laughs at this, "Hey, I had this thing about girls then, alright?"

Libby did want to become a member but she had one condition: she didn't want to join without Cindy. "I wanted to be in it but I wasn't going without my girl."

"When Cindy first joined I was still kind of reluctant. I mean, REALLY reluctant." recalls Jimmy. "She had made fun of the band and now she was going to join it?"

"I didn't want to join up at first. Me and Jimmy had a...strained relationship at the time and the last thing I wanted was to be in a band with him. I didn't want to be in a band period. So when Libby asked me if I wanted to join I thought she'd lost her mind. But they really sounded good. I had to admit it, they could rock."

Unbeknown to Cindy, Libby had Sheen secretly bring some songs Cindy had recorded in her home for Jimmy and Carl to listen to. She and Libby had been writing and recording music on their own for a little while but Cindy wouldn't let anyone else hear them. But, it was on these tapes that one could hear her true potential.

"She had some real talent there but I think she just did it to satisfy herself as a hobby. She was into so many other things then like tai-chi and whatnot and music wasn't at the top of her list. I don't think she cared. Besides I think she was a little embarrassed to let anyone hear her play."

"It totally blew me away when I listened to Cindy's music." said Sheen. "There were about 15 or 16 songs I heard. I couldn't believe it was her playing the guitar like that. But Libby assured me that it was. Well, that was good enough for me."

"I'd watch her play the guitar." Libby states. "But, she didn't play it correctly. She used her fingers to stum and pick the strings instead of a pick. She said she could never get used to the feel of it no matter how hard she tried. But that gave her a unique sound and her fingers moved so fast up and down the neck it really didn't matter anyway."

"I listened to the tapes and I was impressed." recalles Jimmy. "Her singing voice needed some work but the guitar playing and songwriting was amazing. She played much better than I could. It's too bad she didn't know how good she was then."

"There were a few reasons I think Jimmy didn't want Cindy to join at first." said Libby. "At that time they really didn't get along too well and they were always fighting. I don't think he wanted girls in the band anyway, though he didn't mind me so much. I think after hearing Cindy play that he was threatened by Cindy's guitar playing and that she would eventually try to take over."

However, after much cajoling by Carl, Sheen and Libby, and after hearing the tapes one more time, Jimmy finally gave in and was persuaded to let Cindy join.

The biggest thing now was to try and convince Cindy.

_Will Cindy join? (Of course she will), but will she want something in return? Will she try to make changes? Find out after this..._

Whadda ya'll think? Silly or stupid? Should I continue? Please review.

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FYI: There was an actual band in the 70's called the Babys who had two hit records in the U.S. They disbanded in 1981 so I decided to use the name here. It's been more than 20 years so why not, right? Anyway, if there are any lawyers out there don't waste your time because I have no money.


	2. The Beginning: A Flaming Pie

The Babys Anthology

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**A/N: I wasn't going to continue this story because of a possible conflict of interest with another author. But things are cool and there should be no problems now. I also wasn't going to continue because the more I thought about the plot of this story the stupider it seemed to me. But then I thought why not have some fun anyway and let the chips fall where they may. With that in mind, here's Chapter 2. Please try to overlook any mistakes. Flame on!**

Disclamer: Don't bother me.

**

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Chapter II: The Beginning

**A Flaming Pie**

Last time...Jimmy, Carl and Sheen decide to reunite the band and also let Libby join, but she will only if Cindy is also allowed to do so. After much discussion, it was agreed to let her join, but was Cindy willing to?

----

"We invited her over to Jimmy's house the next day to ask her." remembers Carl. "Jimmy had his mom cook this big dinner just for her and there was like this sort of party atmosphere. It was like it was her birthday or something."

"She didn't know we had listened to her tapes let alone asking her to join." said Jimmy. "So we thought we'd better butter her up first."

"Well, obviously I knew something was up but I decided to play along." recalls Cindy smiling.

After dinner, everyone moved to Jimmy's living room to watch TV and talk about various...things. All evening long Cindy was becoming increasingly curious about what was happening and wanted to know why there was suddenly all this fuss over her, but no one would answer her questions directly. She was becoming agitated but she wouldn't be denied. "Ok, guys. What's going on? What's all this? It's not my birthday."

Again, Cindy's questions were ignored. She was now clearly becoming upset. Libby then eased into the subject of the band.

_Flashback_

"_So, word on the street is that you guys decided to get your band back together." said Libby._

"_Yeah, we were thinking about it." Jimmy replied._

"_Oh, that lame band you guys had?" Cindy asked_

"_It wasn't lame." answered Jimmy._

"_You guys didn't even play."_

"_Anyway," Libby interrupted, "I was thinking that I wouldn't mind joining you guys."_

"_What?_ _Whatever." sneered Cindy._

"_We could talk about it." said Jimmy knowingly_

"_What do you think, Cindy?"_

"_I think you'd be wasting your time." Cindy said._

"_I don't know. It might be fun. Maybe you should think about joining too." said Carl._

"_Why would I?" Cindy asked as she folded her arms._

_Cindy then looked up as she felt the stare of four sets of eyes upon her._

"_Wait a minute. Is this what this was all about?" No one said anything in reply. _

"_I knew it." said Cindy angrily. "I'm so out of here." Cindy stood up to leave._

"_Wait." Libby paused for a moment. "I had them listen to your tapes."_

"_What?" said a horrified Cindy, "Libby how could you?"_

"_Relax, Cindy. They liked them. They were really impressed. Especially Jimmy."_

"_I didn't say that.", Jimmy retorted. "I just said that she was very competent."_

_Cindy's face softened. "Really?"_

"_You sounded cool.", Sheen agreed._

"_And you can write really good.", added Carl._

"_I don't know.", Cindy pondered. "I'm not sure._

_"Look, Cindy, I'll be honest with you.", said Libby. "I'm already in but I won't stay unless you join too."_

"_Think about it." said Sheen._

_She looked around at the rest of the group and saw their faces, but she didn't say anything. She _**was**_ thinking._

"_Don't you want to at least hear how we would sound?" asked Libby._

_End Flashback_

"I agreed to join but only on a trail basis. I had no intention of staying at first but I wasn't sure yet. Although, I was curious to hear what we would sound like."

They all agreed to meet in Jimmy's garage the next day to begin down the long road to stardom. They got off to a pretty good start...at first.

"There we were in my garage the five of us for the first time as a band." said Jimmy. "Everyone was just standing there just staring at each other not knowing what to do next."

"Jimmy said that we should play something simple that everyone knew." said Carl.

"I suggested we play a oldies song called, "Chains". It was one of the songs on Cindy's tapes." says Libby. "I said it was the easiest to play because it only had four chords in it, it only last two minuets and it's simple. I played the tape of the song so everyone could get an idea of what it sounded like."

"So we played it. We played the whole song all the way through without stopping. Me and Cindy sung because we knew the words and the boys just played. She even threw in a little solo. I remember we didn't look at each other at all. Maybe we were just too embarrassed. When we were done we just looked at each other for a minute and then everyone just broke out laughing. That kind of broke the ice."

"We sounded horrible." recalls Cindy. "We were so out of tune. Well, we really didn't sound _that_ bad considering the fact that we were playing together for the first time. I said to myself, 'You know, this could actually be something.', but you could tell we needed a lot more practice."

"Me, Carl and Sheen sounded fine." explained Jimmy. "It was Cindy who was off key. I'm kidding, she actually sounded great. We all sounded pretty good, I think. We were all having so much fun that day playing different songs and stuff it really didn't matter. I think Cindy was having the most fun because she didn't want to stop. I don't think we went home until around 11 o'clock that night."

_**Flashback**_

_As they all were leaving Jimmy's garage for the evening, Cindy stayed behind to talk with him._

"_You know, Jimmy, I had a lot of fun today."_

"_I know I could tell. I had fun too." _

"_Who knew we could sound so good together?"_

"_Yeah, well it's late. I'll see you tomorrow."_

"_You bet. By the way, there are just a couple of things I wanna say."_

"_Yes?"_

"_I'll stay in the band if I get two things in return. First, I want my tapes back... NOW."_

"_Sure. What's the other thing?"_

"_We should really talk about changing the name of the band."_

"_What?"_

"_Yeah. With us girls in it now, we can't be lords now can we?"_

"_But..."_

"_Besides, it sounds so lame. Well, see you later, Neutron. Bye." Cindy then turned around and walked out of the garage._

"_I knew I shouldn't have let her join.", Jimmy fumed. "No matter how good she is."_

_**End Flashback**_

That weekend, the five of them got together to accomplish three things.

One: To discuss the possibility of another name for the band.

Two: To establish some ground rules so no one was injured or killed.

Three: To Practice.

_**The Name**_

"Actually, it was Libby who came up with the name quite by accident."

"The 'Llama Lords of Science' just wasn't gonna cut it." said Libby. "We had to come up with a much better name than that."

_There was only one problem. Cindy and Libby wanted to change it while Carl, Sheen and Jimmy didn't._

"We had frank discussions about it. No, we just plain argued about it. We tried different names but we kept coming back to the Llama Lords."

**Flashback**

"_What's wrong with the 'Llama Lords of Science'?" asked Jimmy._

"_Because it's ridiculous, Neutron." Cindy said._

"_Guys, let's figure on a new name later. Let's just play." Libby pleaded._

"_I don't wanna change it. It's got the word 'llama' in it." said Carl._

"_Were not changing it and it's not ridiculous. It reflects me, Carl and Sheen."_

"_Then it should be called the 'Lameo Dorks of Science'."_

"_Hey, don't ridicule the llamas." Carl said._

"_Or Ultralord." Sheen added._

"_Guys?"_

"_Were not changing the name and that's final." Jimmy stomped his foot._

"_Well, I don't want to be in a band with a stupid name like that." Cindy replied._

"_Hey..."_

"_You know where the door is, Vortex." Jimmy shot back._

"_Will you guys just stop it?" Libby screamed, "Your acting like a bunch of babies." Everyone stopped talking and looked at Libby, who was clearly embarrassed by a of the attention._

"_What?"_

"_That's it."_

"_What are you talking about, Neutron?"_

"_What was that last thing you said, Libby."_

"_Um...babies?"_

"_Whadda think?"_

"_Are you saying that we should call ourselves the babies?" asked Cindy._

"_No way, I'm not a baby." said Sheen_

"_Think about it. We're all still pretty young. And though were not technically babies, we would be in the eyes of the music world."_

"_Yeah, and when people hear us play it will totally blow their minds." said Libby._

"_But were not really all _**that**_ good." Carl reminded._

"_Not to worry, Carl. By the time we get out there we _**will **_be blowing peoples minds."_

"_OK, we'll be the babies...for now," agreed Cindy, "It's better than Llama Lords, anyway. But, we change the spelling. B-A-B-Y-S. That would look cooler on the album covers."_

"_...and a girl came onto us on a flaming pie, and she said, 'You are Babys with a 'Y'. And so we were." Carl said._

"_What?" said the rest of the group as they turned to look at Carl._

"_Nothing."_

**End Flashback**

_**The Rules**_

As emotions were still running high it was clear that nothing else was going to get done that day, so every one went home to cool off. At least they had settled on a name. But, petty disagreements and almost constant arguing threatened to split the band before it even got started.

In order to keep the peace, it was clear that there were a few simple rules that had to be established, sort of a band agreement, known as, **_The Rules_**, that everyone had to follow. Two days later when the band had reassembled, Cindy bought a short list of guidelines along with her that she had written and read it aloud hoping it would meet with the others approval. The others also added their own rules to round it out. The Rules ended up reading like this:

_It is our goal to provide the best musical experience to ourselves and the general public and to have as much fun as possible in doing so. Baring this in mind, certain guidelines must be laid down, known henceforth as The Rules, to ensure that this objective is met. The Rules are as follows:_

**1. There will be no fighting, arguing, name-calling, punching, biting, eye-gouging, wedgies or any other physical or verbal abuse between band members of any kind. **(This rule was often broken.)

2. There will be **NO** official leader. Everyone stands on equal ground. There are no stars here.

3. Everyone has to contribute material or some sort of musical idea or input.

4. There will be no sampling, overdubbing, mixing-in, or otherwise ripping of parts of songs from other artists.

5. Similarly, please refrain from doing too many cover versions of other artists songs. Try to be as original as possible.

6. Whoever writes a song sings the lead vocal unless given to someone else in the band to sing at the songwriters request. (Didn't happen very often.)

7. Whoever writes the song gets final say on how it ends up sounding.

8. Whoever had the idea originally get songwriting credit.

9. If any money is made it will be split equally between everyone. (Very important.)

10. If there are any issues the band will vote on it unanimously.

11. No one can stop the music. (Unless there are Twonkies around.)

12. See rule #1

13. Everyone just have fun with it! Rock on!

14. There is no rule #14.

After a vote they decided to accept the rules and to follow them.

_Of course, rules were meant to be broken and often were._

"Yes, rule 1 was broken with regularity. But the other rules were surprisingly adhered to. Especially rule 3 and rule 11." said Jimmy. "Libby made sure of that one."

"You have to have some sort of understanding between band members if you want to get anything done." adds Cindy. "With us, however, we needed actual rules. Although, we didn't follow them all the time."

"Rule 3 was easy because we all had ideas. No matter how silly or strange they were, they were all listened to." Libby said.

Well they found a name and made a band agreement (The Rules). Now all they had to do was to actually practice. You know, play music and stuff.

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Come back next time as the story continues. Yes, they eventually do get around to practicing and becoming serious about what they were doing, actually becoming good enough to play in front of people (shudder).

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Can you tell who wrote which rule? Do you care? Please review. 


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